Theatre History Studies

Ana Olivarez-Levinson

I started collecting materials related to Chicano/Latino Teatro as early as 1973. After graduating from high school, I returned to LA to reconnect with my grand-mother and extended family members for a temporary visit. My parents, siblings, and I had left LA in 1971 and moved to Houston, Texas. During one of my walks in East LA, I came across a Summer Park program while Chicano songwriter Agustín Lira was entertaining a group of children with his culturally empowering Spanish-language tunes. During the conversation, he introduced himself as having performed with a group of musicians during the Delano, California, grape strike headed by Cesar E. Chavez. I had been missing and yearning to reconnect with the thriving Chicano movement that I left behind in my hometown of LA. I was hungry for mexicano cultural information. At the park and rec center, I spotted a poster announcing a play titled La Gran Carpa de los Rasquachis, performed and written by El Teatro Campesino.¹ I was so excited to [End Page 169] be able to witness something I strongly connected to on different levels. I took multiple pictures with my cheap Kodak, as was my hobby in LA, with the intention of sharing them with my friends and family in Texas. After seeing the performance of Teatro Campesino, I remember saying to myself, “That’s what I want to do in the future.” The consciousness-raising and cultural message transmitted in the art form was what stuck with me. I wasn’t inspired to become a great “actress.” It was the process, the way the message was delivered, that inspired me to later do exactly that.

However, the real sharing of the photos from the Campesino performance began a year later, in 1974, when I participated in a summer academic prep program for incoming Latino freshmen at the University of Houston. At the request of a Latina English instructor teaching Chicano literature, I agreed to share with the class my collection of East LA photos. The pictures included the Estrada Project murals painted on the walls of East LA housing projects as well as photos of Teatro Campesino’s performance. The experience of sharing these photos with my peers allowed me to see the value in the documentation process, in the sharing process, in the dissemination of information. The students and the staff all were interested and respectful of my early involvement and immersion in a dynamic cultural movement they had not yet experienced. As a nineteen-yearold, I became the messenger of Chicano culture from East LA to these incoming freshmen attending the University of Houston. My pictures became a tool for sharing information otherwise not seen or celebrated in mainstream media, much less in the university culture.

I started taking pictures and eventually collecting them. My early teatro experiences date back to my first freshman semester, fall 1974. The same instructor that had asked me to share my LA photos requested my assistance in helping to direct two plays, both by Teatro Campesino. The work of Luis Valdez, director and playwright of Teatro Campesino, had a major influence on all aspiring Chicano theatre beginners, including myself. The instructor agreed to give me a well-deserved credit in the next semester once I registered in her Chicano literature class.

Since I was directing, I was able to take photos as the action was unfolding. In 1975, at age twenty, I attended the TENAZ (Teatros Nacionales de Aztlán) teatro festival (aka the Chicano Theatre Festival) in San Antonio, Texas. I was the only person able to attend the festival from the teatro I was involved with at the time, Teatro Tejano. I took photos of all the performances, workshops, and social interactions in late-night jam sessions. The primary goal was not only to return to the Houston group to share this rich historical experience reflected [End Page 170] by the multiple...